


America, You Great Unfinished Symphony

by actonbell



Series: Avengers, Assembled [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hamilton: The Musical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 14:56:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5131766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actonbell/pseuds/actonbell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was originally meant to be a lighthearted vignette about Steve going to see <i>Hamilton.</i> It turned into something else along the way. To me, it's a Tony Stark story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	America, You Great Unfinished Symphony

Because people only like dead saints, and I refuse to be a saint or a martyr. -- John Lennon

*

"That fucker," Tony groaned from amongst the wreckage of the most giant, elaborate, unhealthy breakfast riddled with fat, carbohydrates, sugar, and for good measure, alcohol (just mimosas), he could dream up as a tonic for his hangover. "Who does he think he _is?"_

Pepper surveyed him, and the table, from over the brim of her cup of black coffee, safe in the doorway. "....Captain America?" she suggested.

"You're supposed to be on _my_ side!"

*

"It's a great offer," Steve had said sincerely into thin air, getting a bit of breath back on his run -- JARVIS had directed the call straight to his earpiece -- "but if you don't mind....maybe I could put my ticket in the ten-dollar raffle, I could sign it even, and" -- he sped up, sensing disappointment -- "watch from backstage, maybe? That was always my favourite spot. I'll try not to get in the way," he added, always conscious of how he couldn't just tuck himself into a corner anymore.

He could practically hear the grin through the phone. "Steve, you've just made the day of every single person in the cast and crew. For life."

Steve laughed. "Well, thank you."

*

"Did you _read_ this article -- one of the prompt guys was so excited he lost his balance and sprained his ankle and fucking Steve wound up giving the fucking _cues -- "_

"Tony, I _wrote_ the article."

*

They had tried, but they had, inevitably, failed. There was just no way of keeping Steve secret; not then, not now, probably not ever. In the end, people who were there swore it wasn't that someone backstage ratted him out (they all grew furious just at the suggestion), or that a reporter had been tipped off, or even that someone had glimpsed the profile that might as well have been on the nation's currency, too. One boy from Iowa, who had been specially sponsored with his orphanage, asked if you had ever been in a tall field, of corn, or wheat -- ? So tall, unharvested, that it went way above your head, and even when the air was still, when there was no breeze at all, the plants swayed together, rustled and whispered? It was like that, he said. Everyone just _knew._

*

"He's going to start a riot, one of these days. He's going to start a fucking _riot,_ and who'll have to fly in there and clean it up? Who?"

"Do you want to sulk or do you want to talk about today's schedule?"

"I want to sulk! Of course I want to sulk. -- God, Pep, he didn't even bring the _shield._ He didn't bring so much as a -- "

"Clint was up in the -- "

"I KNOW Clint was up in the flies! I told him to get up there! Since Barnes couldn't be bothered to -- "

"That's not fair. That's so unfair, you know damn well that Bucky -- "

"All right, all right. That wasn't fair. I'm sorry. I apologize. To you. To Bucky. To everyone. Everyone but Steve. I'm never speaking to Steve again."

*

"How is he?" Steve asked, after he'd had a shower and then dragged Bucky in with him and kissed him hard under the pounding spray, just to _start_ with, and Pepper pointed wordlessly to the open door of the study, which was lit fitfully by firelight, and from which came a rich, strong smell of applewood, brandy, and cigar smoke. Steve sighed.

*

"It _is_ a little hard to kill me," Steve said, framed oh so fucking dramatically in the doorway, the light from behind making his gold hair glow like the goddamn halo it was. The fire at Tony's side painted him in gold and black, too. He came in -- Jesus, it was always like watching a horse canter, balancing its bulk on those little hooves, all that power and grace -- and sat down in the chair across from where Tony was sprawled on the sofa. He quirked his mouth at the sight of the half-empty bottle on the floor. "Gee, this seems familiar...."

 _"Fuck_ you. I'm not him. I am _not_ Howard. I am not Howard and I will not repeat Howard's life. I will not sit vigil over your body for the rest of my days, and...."

"Tony."

"You don't understand. You don't know _people._ You aren't people. I'm people. I know how shitty we really are."

"Tony...." Steve said, and moved over to the sofa. Tony jerked away. Steve hunkered down on the floor next to him.

"Go away."

Steve sighed again and sat down on the floor.

"If you're any more understanding and generous and open, I'm going to puke."

"Pepper'll kill you if you puke on that sofa," Steve said, leaning up against it. He stared into the fire a moment, then poured himself a finger of Howard's brandy in Tony's glass. "How many of these are left?"

"How did you know -- "

"Tony, I was there when he bought the cases."

Tony could never stay silent for long. There was a deep sigh, with something like a suppressed sob at the end. "That's not the last one. I wouldn't waste it on you. Or your wake."

"Tony, I'm right here. I'm _fine."_

*

The crowd around the theatre had gotten even bigger, because people had heard Steve was there, and more and more came, people who hadn't been in the audience or seen the show. The police were called out. That was probably when he thought he finally had his chance; in his room afterwards, the cops found diaries, drawings, lists of sightings, attempts at outlining a daily schedule, all crude and amateurish, worthless. But his hate had kept his imagination going, working like a furnace, and it had kept him going, through the fight to get through the crowds, powering him to his chosen place in history.

*

"I'm leaving your schedule here," Pepper said, and put it down nicely on the table next to the door, turned on her exquisite heel, and closed it behind her louder than any slam.

"Now that's how you have the last word," Tony said to the empty room, and gloomily speared a sausage.

*

The shouting and the stamping had been going on a good half-hour. Nobody was leaving, the police were on the way, people were muttering the word _riot._ Steve got up from the cue guy's side, where he'd been making jokes about whether or not spraining your ankle counted as breaking a leg, and said humbly, "If I could make a suggestion....?"

*

"I had tinnitus for two days after that," the showrunner told the papers. "I have never heard people scream like that in my life before, not anywhere, when he came out onstage. It must've been like when people saw the Beatles."

*

Steve didn't know the modern technical names for the new lighting systems, but his showgirl lessons had stuck, and he was able to make some good suggestions. The stage was darkened, and then a single gold spot showed up on the warm worn wood. The noise was immense; it was only the second time the Guinness World Record set for crowd noise by the Seahawks fans had been broken. Steve walked from the wings across to the spot, and just stood there, letting them see him, enduring the noise and acclaim and how the crowd started to chant his name, at the top of their lungs. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't look unhappy, either; it was the Captain America face. He was silent a good five minutes, and when he finally raised his hands, motioning for silence, the noise began to die down. He started speaking, and people began violently shushing each other, telling each other to shut up. He kept starting to speak, and then waiting, and by the time he was done -- it did take a little while -- the entire audience was absolutely silent, including the people who had crowded in on the aisles, the people standing packed as subway riders at the back, the people filling the lobby. Someone had set up a camera which was broadcasting live to screens outside.

He was wearing ordinary clothes, khakis and one of his button-down plaid shirts, but even people who had been there thought he'd been wearing the uniform. Some swore he was carrying the shield.

"Thank you," Steve said modestly, and waited patiently through the inevitable noise and screaming that followed, but he was able to direct it now. "Thank _you._ I wish I could take the time to talk to you all personally, but" -- he rode out the enormous roar of disapproval without a flinch -- "we both know that isn't gonna happen. I wish it could, though. But I think we can do something else, all together, and it might be a little corny, but I think it's appropriate. There's an old song I know, and we could all sing it together, and then I'll have to go." He waited. "I know. I'm sorry. I do apologize. But I think you'll like this song. It's one of my favourites. Will you sing it with me?"

The answering chorus of agreement was the sound that broke the noise record, according to a technician backstage.

"Good. I'd like to sing the whole song, even though it's long, and you might not know some of the later verses. But you'll all know the chorus." He nodded to the music director, who cued the little orchestra, and they played the intro.

*

"I was here when John Lennon died, you know," Tony said, after Steve had had a little more of Howard's brandy, and the fire started going from yellow to red. "In New York. They liked being in New York, for the holidays."

Steve frowned. "I thought you were at MIT?"

"I was _ten,"_ Tony corrected. "And a half." Steve smiled into his glass. "It was like everyone's....heart was broken. _Everyone._ Do you want to break the nation's heart, Steve? Because you could."

Steve was silent a little while, Tony's dark eyes glittering, watching him in the firelight. "I know," he said finally. "I try not to. But I can't....not live, Tony. You can't not live, just trying not to die."

"That makes no sense," Tony sniffed.

"I know you know it doesn't. You can't save everybody."

"That's _my_ line. To you. You're the hero."

"No," Steve said gently as he could, "that's my line. To you."

*

"Soldier," Clint said tensely, into his body mike.

"Got him," Bucky said.

"He's _right in front of -- "_

"I got him," Bucky repeated, and stepped in front of David Henry McLellan, thirty-one, who lived with his parents in Red Hook, just as he was about to fire.

*

"If you die, Steve," Tony said, finally drunk enough to say what he really felt and maybe even drunk enough not to remember it next morning, which meant it was okay because then it didn't really count, "if you break my fucking heart, like you broke Howard's, I will fucking kill you. I know! I know, it makes no fucking sense. But I will. I will _kill you."_

Steve glanced beyond Tony to where Pepper stood in the door, her beauty lit up golden, and Bucky like a shadow behind her. "I think you'll have to get in line."

"First. I'll be _first_ in line."

*

Bucky had crushed David Henry McLellan's wrist with his metal hand, just as he'd pulled the trigger, and directed the bullet into his abdomen, trying to keep it away from the major organs, but McLellan had died in surgery three hours later. If Bucky had twisted McLellan's arm up to fire into the air, it would have caused major panic; if he'd tried to divert the shot anywhere else, it might have hit himself, or more likely someone in the crowd. Or Steve. Bucky had looked into McLellan's eyes as the shot hit him, and then slipped his arm around his waist, holding him up, getting him out of the crowd. He had calculated that he could carry McLellan to the nearest trauma center faster than an ambulance could get there, and he was right. He stayed with McLellan in the waiting room while a nurse grabbed a gurney and got an IV going and screamed to wake up the surgeon, and then he left, a big but quiet figure in a dark hoodie and baseball cap, somehow always just on the edge of the surveillance camera's field. A friend must have brought him in, the doctors told his parents, hours later. What friends? his father said bitterly. Dave never had friends.

David Henry McLellan became a statistic in the "rising number of tragic gun deaths in this city, which in this month alone has jumped to -- " and history poured around him, over him; he was born and then buried in time like any other man, not even a ghost to future generations.

*

_When the sun comes shining,_ Steve sang, the crowd and even the musicians quiet to hear him,

_....then I was strolling,_  
_With the wheat fields waving, the dust clouds rolling,_  
_The voice come a-chanting, and the fog was lifting._  
_This land was made for you and me._

And then, like they were all in church, everyone standing by now, shouting more than singing, the crowd answered him with, _This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island...._ He sang the chorus through with them one more time, then stopped, and said "Thank you," again, and left the stage, ducking out quickly through the applauding cast and crew, making for the side door where the crowds were already waiting. Clint was outside by then, on the roof, and Bucky was a shadow by the side of the door, on Steve's left.

*

"Okay. Upsy-daisy," Steve said, and pulled Tony to his feet in one easy movement.

"Oh, just like the old days? Had some practice at this, hunh?"

"Not quite like the old days," Steve said, and Bucky stepped forward to help support Tony, one on each side, and their eyes met over Tony's head: _no, not quite._ Tony suddenly jerked up and said to Bucky, "You! Did you do it? Did you shoot John Lennon?"

 _"TONY,"_ Pepper said, louder than Steve had ever heard her.

Bucky looked straight into Tony's eyes and said, "You know, if I had, I think I might have actually remembered that one. So....no."

"Thank Christ for that," Tony said, and passed out.

*

As far as Clint could tell, nobody had really realized they'd heard a muffled gunshot, but some people had registered the noise, and the tenor of the crowd was changing in a way he recognized. "You have to get out of here," he said to Steve, who was reaching out to sign an autograph already, did the guy do it in his sleep? _"Now."_

"But -- all these people were waiting -- "

"They'll fucking live. NOW, Steve!"

"Not without Bucky, I can't see him -- "

But then everyone looked up as Tony was hovering fifty feet in the air, gently bobbing, right above them. "Like my man Warren Zevon said, your ride's here," the Iron Man voice boomed out, and everyone laughed and cheered. "Sorry, folks, Captain America has to be in bed before ten every night, or he turns into a red-white-and-blue pumpkin. Say g'night, Gracie." 

Tony had been lowering himself slowly all the while he was chattering, his old magician's trick of diversion, and now he was just above Steve, his armour automatically clearing a space around them, and Steve scribbled one last signature and then Tony linked his metal arms as gently as he could around Steve's ridiculous waist, and shouted "The Elvises are leaving the building!" and they shot up in a blaze of light, like fireworks, like a living Fourth of July.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Hamilton's last words in Lin-Manuel Miranda's "The World Was Wide Enough."
> 
> The epigraph is from a John Lennon interview explaining why he returned his MBE to protest the Vietnam war.
> 
> The song Steve sings is of course "This Land Is Your Land," by Woody Guthrie, with the last verse he used when he recorded it. You can read more about the different verses here http://www.npr.org/2000/07/03/1076186/this-land-is-your-land


End file.
